A Rule That's Written in Stone
by TheRealSokka
Summary: The Robinsons stick together. In the aftermath of the failed fuel-salvage attempt (Episode 7), Judy and Will get to discuss which of them is the most (and least) useless.


Judy Robinson stared blankly at the grey walls of the hub. It felt like she'd been doing nothing but for the last hour, which probably looked pretty strange from another's point of view. As far as she knew, though, the _Jupiter 2_ was deserted save for her. Everyone was busy with something, so she had the ship all to herself, which suited her fine. The only sound was the steady _beep_ ing of the perimeter alert, every so often interrupted by a small trill when someone moved along the fence. Nobody paid those warnings much mind anymore: with so many people moving about their temporary home, it had become just a part of the routine. And Judy was grateful for it, because she really needed routine right now.

She thought she'd been doing a pretty good job of it: She'd run on the treadmill; check. She'd run the early morning perimeter scan, check. She'd eaten breakfast with the family; check. She'd listened to mom give her briefing on what new catastrophes had happened overnight; check. She'd done her part to reign in the most pressing of those catastrophes; check. She'd finally found some time to breathe; check. A normal day so far. All should be in order.

Except that the perimeter alert kept sounding like a failing life support system in her mind.

Judy liked to think she was a pretty good doctor. Sure, she still had a lot to learn, but in most emergencies she thought she could hold her own. And she'd never lost a patient. Until yesterday.

How did people cope with that? Judy didn't know; she wasn't. Maybe it would have been easier if it had been a face she'd never seen before, just a stranger who happened to be her responsibility; but Evan had been her friend. Not close, perhaps, but she'd liked him. Judy felt her eyes sting again when she thought back. He hadn't talked much about it, but Judy assumed he'd had plans for Alpha Centauri, too, just like everyone else. A home, a job, mabye a family. Did they have waves to surf there? Judy didn't know.

How could she have allowed him to just die?

Even when all the digits on his screen showed zero, she had refused to accept it. In a way, she still didn't. A small, childish part of her still expected to close her eyes and wake up in her bunk the next moment, with her mother holding her and telling her it was all a bad dream. It was pathetic. She was an adult, and losing people – well she'd been aware that it could be part of her job, especially in a place like this. So what happened to Evan – it happened. Brooding over it did no one any good. She should have been able to move on, but for some reason she just couldn't. Her mind kept taking her back into the back of the rover, playing out different scenarios each time, but always ending with the same result. There was nothing to distract her from these thoughts, either. So, for the past hour, she had just been sitting here, staring at a wall as if that would somehow solve her problems.

 _Clunk. Clunk. Clunk._

"Hey, Judy."

It was remarkable how quickly you could become used to that combination of sounds. Judy snapped out of her stupor and half-turned around, to see her little brother enter the brig, the robot following close behind, as always. Judy barely reacted to him anymore. He had become such a normal part of Will that everyone just took him for granted at this point.

Her little brother was walking with purpose, so she guessed the two of them had work to do. He had already walked past her when Judy finally managed a short "Hey, Will."

Will paused, then took a step back and looked at her curiously: "You okay?"

Judy forced a smile. There was no sense in burdening Will with this, too. "Yeah, 'course. What are you doing?"

"We're playing. I wanna try to teach him how to build models! I thought we could start with the Jupiter-sets we've got stowed away."

The excitement in his little voice was so palpable that it brought an actual smile to Judy's lips. Will had that effect. When she looked at the robot, his display had changed into a swirling pattern of dots, which she guessed was supposed to be excitement, too. She hadn't yet learned to decipher whatever the robot was trying to express, not like Will seemed to have. Or maybe her little brother was just pretending to understand him; that was also possible. In any case, Judy wasn't going to interrupt them.

"Well, have fun."

"Yes, boss!"

 _Clunk. Clunk. Clunk._

And just as quickly, both of them were gone again. Judy looked after them. Maybe she should dig up some of those models, too, she thought idly. It would give her something to do, at least.

Of course, there was one thing she still needed to do; a very important thing, actually: She needed to visit Evan's brother. And tell him. Of course, by now he already knew what had happened; everybody knew. But she hadn't been the one to tell them, even though she knew she had to. She'd made it all the way to the entrance of their Jupiter – and then she just couldn't move. The thought of looking into that family's eyes and telling them she was responsible was just too much. She couldn't do it. Now, thirteen hours later, Judy was still trying to gather her resolve to go back there, but so far, she hadn't been able to. Just another item on the long list of things she couldn't handle.

 _Clunk. Clunk. Clunk._

"You're not okay."

It wasn't a question. Judy sighed. Sometimes her little brother was almost as nosy as Penny. She looked up. Will had set down on the chair next to hers, his head tilted to the side and now looking at her with definite worry. He was so much like mom when he did that; he already had that "tell me what's wrong so I can fix it" look, even though he probably wasn't aware of it. Intentional or not, it did have the same effect now.

"Do you ever just feel – I don't know; useless?"

The words were out before Judy could stop them. She bit her lip. That wasn't what she had meant to say. But now that she'd put it into words, it hung in the room like a great grey cloud, and she realized that was exactly what she was feeling at the moment. And Will was looking at her wide-eyed, like he couldn't believe he had heard right. Judy tried to backpedal: "Sorry. Just forget it; I…"

"Are you kidding?" Will interrupted. He visibly struggled to get out the next words: "I'm the most useless person on this ship."

Now it was Judy who stared at him wondering if she heard right. "Will! Why would you…?! You've done so much since we crashed."

Will shook his head fervently: "No. That was all him. I'm just lucky he listens to me."

Judy glanced at the robot behind him. His 'face' had gone completely still. Maybe he was trying to grasp what this conversation was about, or maybe he was still mirroring Will, who had likewise fallen silent, slumped over on his chair and looking very small all of a sudden. Seeing that, Judy almost automatically straightened up: she _did_ have some experience with her brother being ridiculous, after all. That was something she could deal with.

"Will." Her sharp tone made him look up. "That is complete nonsense. No, listen! I'm pretty sure you saved us multiple times now…"

"But that was…"

"So what if it was the robot? It's following what _you_ say, and you don't even know why, do you? You think he'd do that for dad? Or for me? Look, _you_ saved his life; that was all you. It's just… I for one am very glad that you're here, believe me."

Will quickly looked down at the floor, in obvious embarrassment: "But I shouldn't be. I'm no good at all this, not like you are. I have no idea how I passed those tests in the first place."

"The tests? Scrap those tests! I don't feel like that prepared any of us for all this. Not even mom and dad." Her brother didn't look very convinced by that, but Judy was far from done anyway: " _I'm_ feeling useless, Will. Do you know what happened? I let Evan die while I was taking care of him. _I_ let him die. That's not supposed to happen. We were supposed to bring him back safely. That's my job, for fucks sake! And now I wasted our only chance to get off this _fucking_ planet, and he died anyway, and it was all for nothing!"

Silence followed. Judy was breathing heavily. She was very glad mom and dad weren't around to hear her shout like that. She felt so angry; angry at this stupid planet, angry at Evan for dying, angry at herself most of all for letting it get to her so much.

"You – you did all you could. You always do."

"Hah! Seems I'm not good for much, then."

"You went down into the ice for me." Will whispered.

"That's different." Judy scoffed. "And see how that turned out, too."

"You would never have gotten stuck if I had just gone down there like dad said. I just – panicked. It's my fault."

"No, Will, it's not! Dad was wrong to expect that of you. It was just – too sudden. The crash, the ice, mom gone… Will, listen to me; none of us expected you to bounce back from that so quickly."

"But I want you to! You can't worry about me all the time when something happens. I want to help. I don't want to be treated like I'm fragile! Even he does that." Will glanced at the robot accusingly, but there was no real anger there. Judy didn't know if Will was even capable of being angry at him. "When the eels were in our tanks, he just locked me up, to protect me. If I were actually qualified to be here, he shouldn't have to do that. I should have been helping you get rid of them."

"Tsk. You know what I was doing that entire time? Nothing. Yeah, got stuck behind a stupid cargo crate! Mom and dad did all the leg work. I just showed up in time for the grand escape."

"At least the crate didn't get you stuck for your own safety."

"Wow, that makes me feel so much better!"

"That's not even the point. Mom trusts you. But she always wants to _protect_ me! She held my hand the entire time when we were embarking. I mean – she didn't have to!"

"Really? She used to do that with me, when I was smaller. Oh, and did I mention? That morning when we went, I totally forgot our ID! That was what mom trusted me with, and I was so excited I completely flunked it. Penny remembered, of all people!"

Will looked at her sceptically: "Can't be. You never forget anything. You're just saying that to make me feel better."

"Hey, Robinson word of honour. Don't tell anyone, but I'm not perfect."

"Well – at least you get to be in charge when mom and dad are gone. You know they'd never give Penny or me the command."

"That's not even…" Judy made to reply, but stopped short when a thought entered her mind. She quickly went back over the conversation: "Will, what is this? Are we just one-upping each other who's the most useless right now?"

Will looked at her startled. Then Judy could have sworn she saw the tiniest flicker of a smile on his lips. "Yeah. I guess so."

Bizarrely, Judy felt like laughing. Now that she realized how ridiculous they were being, it was hard not to. If Penny were here, she'd never let them hear the end of it. Judy let herself fall face first onto the table, ever so slightly embarrassed: "Wow. This is so stupid."

"Yeah."

 _Clang_.

They both jumped at the sudden noise, instinctively thinking something had gone wrong again. But it was just the robot, whose face had likewise made contact with the desk top, right next to Will's. It was just an imitation of what they were doing; a gesture of resignation. But right now, in context, it seemed to say "Yeah. You are both idiots."

Judy stared at him. Then she looked to Will, who mirrored her expression. Then they both burst out laughing. It had been a long time since laughter had been the predominant noise on the _Jupiter 2_ , and now neither of them was able to stop. Maybe they were making up for lost time, who knew? Who cared?

Through her tears and giggles, Judy noticed the robot. He was turning his head from side to side, lights dancing, looking at both of them in turn, and she didn't need a translation to see his confusion. She just managed to think that maybe she had it all wrong: She tended to get frustrated with not understanding the robot, but what about the other way around? They didn't make it easy for him, that was for certain.

The Robinsons were the real conundrum of this strange, strange world.

* * *

 **I'm aware that the timeline doesn't quite match up, so let's just call this an AU where Will doesn't walk the robot off the cliff. That hurt too much for me to handle, anyway.**


End file.
